Like all of you up late watching last night’s thriller between our fair-haired lads and the boys from L.A., I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only when T.J. Galiardi scored the most clutch goal of the season to that point, tying the game up in the final seconds, but when Ruslan Salei promptly wiped out all the hard work of his team with one stupid move.

Salei’s cross check of Justin Williams with under two minutes left in overtime was the single worst, most unconscionable act of the season by an Avalanche player. While the rest of his team was working hard and striving toward an extra point that could make the difference in whether they make the playoffs or not, Salei chucked it all in the garbage with the blatant two-handed whack into the back of Williams, putting the Kings on a 4-on-3, where Drew Doughty promptly ended it.

If Williams had had the puck where he was stationed, in front of the net, referees might have let Salei’s CC slide. But Williams was nowhere near the puck, and the refs had to call it. It was interference as much as it was a cross check. It wasn’t Salei’s only bad moment of the night either. He lost Wayne Simmonds behind the net, allowing him to casually come out from behind the net and beat Craig Anderson on a wraparound that put the Kings up 2-1 in the second period (granted, on a shot Andy probably should have had).

The Avs are off today, so I don’t have any opportunity to interview anybody, but you can consider it a promise one of the first questions I’ll have for Joe Sacco tomorrow morning will be: what is the reasoning for Salei being in the lineup right now? This is nothing personal against Salei – a decent guy who has done some good things for this team in his time here.

But this is business, and I don’t see the logic right now of playing a 35-year-old guy coming off back surgery and a torso injury. Salei has played two games since coming off the latest injury and the Avs are 0-1-1. Yes, I know he got a garbage time goal in Anaheim the other night. In the eight games Salei has played for the Avs this season, the record is 2-5-1.

Is it all his fault? Of course not. But the numbers are the numbers. Sacco benched John Liles last night to make room for Salei. Liles has been a whipping boy here before too. Liles’ play hasn’t been great lately either, so I understand that it’s a bit of a Hobson’s choice at times for Sacco on who to play and who to sit on his D for games.

But after last night’s selfish, deflating action by Salei, if he isn’t the one sitting for the next one against the Kings, then justice will not be served.

Other thoughts after watching the boys on TV the last three games (that’s the way the schedule happened, with colleague Terry Frei on the beat):
– Matt Duchene needs to step it back up. No points from him the last three games, and it’s cost the Avs some. I have no doubt he’ll blossom into a very clutch player, but he needs to get ‘er going again, starting tomorrow night against the Kings.

– I hate saying this, but I don’t think Ryan O’Reilly has been a very good player at all for a while now. He hasn’t scored a goal since Feb. 2, and in the 16 games since, he’s had two assists and is a minus-6. And he’s been on the ice a lot for a PK unit that has been very bad of late.

– It’s clear that the major issue going forward for the Avs is their defense. They give up too many shots, and the personnel of the D just doesn’t match the personnel and, more important, the personality of the forwards. The Avs have this young, fresh feel to the forward group, and an older, slower feel to them on D. With the influx of guys like Kevin Shattenkirk, Colby Cohen, Cameron Gaunce and Stefan Elliot in coming years, that will change. But for now, the Avs have to try to muddle through with what they’ve got.

– Craig Anderson did let in some somewhat soft goals last night and in the last three.

– I somehow have the feeling that it’s all going to come down to the Avs’ next game with Calgary, at home, to decide who gets the eighth spot. (And doesn’t it just feel like the Avs are going to finish eighth, at best, if they make the playoffs or not? Detroit is back to being a juggernaut and they have some cupcakes on their schedule (Columbus three times I believe), while the Avs, after tomorrow’s game with the Kings at home, go right back on the road to play the hottest team in the league (Phoenix) and one still with a shot at No. 1 overall in the West (San Jose). This ain’t gonna be easy.

– Speaking of Phoenix, here’s a column I wrote about their unbelievable story.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.